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Digital Immortality - An Engineering Approach

The request for an endless extension of life (life after death) is present almost throughout the entire existence of mankind. Most religions are trying to answer this request. There is also a purely commercial exploitation of this topic: cryogenic freezes of various kinds and a complete record of a person’s life to create a plausible posthumous copy of it. All these methods do not give a true extension of life, rather a psychotherapeutic and manipulative effect for living people.

I will try to approach this problem from an engineering point of view.

Task


It is necessary to survive the destruction of the biological carrier (death of the biological body) without loss to the individual (accumulated knowledge, emotional experiences, character, etc.). The problem of the primacy of the person received must be guaranteed to be solved - the survivor of “death” should remain the original person, not a copy or imitation. The person must maintain the ability to communicate and act in the real world, it is desirable to maintain legal capacity from a legal point of view.

The solution of the problem


To paraphrase the original TK: it is necessary to save everything that represents a person’s personality on a new medium. Just strengthening the current body (which adds a lifetime), making it indestructible, or creating a system of permanent “repair” is not an optimal solution to the problem. Today's biological body, although it is very optimal for biological existence on planet Earth, is not ideal from the point of view of further development. Preserving yourself at the “advanced monkey” level is not the best solution.

What is human consciousness at the lowest level in today's understanding?


Human consciousness is the topology of neuron connections, their states, and the dynamics of changes in these connections and states. Since it is necessary to take into account the dynamics of state changes, there is no way to simply copy all these parameters from the biological brain and run the model in a computer system. The next moment after copying, a new personality variation will form in the biological brain, and the computer model will become just a copy (imitation).

To solve this problem, you can apply the following trick. In the process of natural life, part of the brain in the form of individual neurons constantly dies, but this does not erase (kill) the personality of a particular person. The death of a part of neurons is a natural state of the human body (it is clear that the number of neurons that have died at one time should not be too large), a process of “neuroplasticity” constantly occurs to counter information loss. This process is constantly rebuilding the neural network connections to compensate for losses, remembering current experience and learning new skills. We can say that a person’s personality is constantly floating (changing).

If you can’t copy the human brain, then you can gradually replace all biological neurons with artificial ones. What will happen to the personality of a particular person: it will, of course, change, but it will be the person who was before the implantation of artificial neurons. Initially, we add artificial neurons to the human brain in almost a random place or in places with increased death of biological neurons. Next, there will be a cyclic process of the death of natural neurons and the restructuring of the current network in a new configuration, using artificial neurons introduced in it, such a process is natural for a biological organism. To compensate for losses due to too fast death of natural neurons,we can add the process of scanning the parameters of the initial neurons and its instantaneous replacement in case of death with an artificial neuron adjacent to it. As a result, there is a transparent (gradual) decoupling of the human person from "natural" neurons and their replacement with artificial components (implants). The process of death seems to stretch in time, there is no sharp moment of death, there is no interruption of consciousness and, accordingly, there is no problem “is it I or a copy of my I?” It must be understood that the transfer is completed only after natural death.there is no interruption of consciousness and, accordingly, there is no problem “is it Me or a copy of my Self?” It must be understood that the transfer is completed only after natural death.there is no interruption of consciousness and, accordingly, there is no problem “is it Me or a copy of my Self?” It must be understood that the transfer is completed only after natural death.

Total


A person, after the implantation of such a system, lives a normal life until the death of the biological body. At the time of death, his brain is completely composed of artificial systems and can be transferred to a new body. A new body can be either a biological clone of this person (we grow a clone with a disabled brain), a robotic device (robot), or it can be transferred to virtual reality (computer).

To understand the features and opportunities offered, you can read the fantastic literature from the LitRPG section (Dmitry Rus, Artem Kamenisty, Andrey Livadny, etc.).

What technologies and tools are necessary for the gradual transfer of personality to a new medium?

The very first is devices for accessing specific neurons in the brain and integrating into neural networks at a level sufficient to participate in the mechanism of neuroplasticity. Here you can implement many approaches, from fully functional biological neurons grown from modified cells of the human body, to complex biocompatible molecules (devices) that attach to the desired places in natural neurons and allow you to read the state of a neuron or transmit an external effect to a neuron. You can even go completely completely non-contact, remotely read and excite individual neurons (something from the field of MRI).

Only requirements are important:

  • participation in the process of neuroplasticity;
  • selectivity (effect on a specific neuron connection);
  • repeatability (communications must be stationary);
  • absence of information loss (all moments of neuron excitation must be detected and a reaction to them formed).

The creation of such devices is possible using knowledge from molecular biology and physics of nanodevices. Previously, it can be said that technologically the creation of such devices is already possible at the current level of scientific knowledge and production capabilities, it is only necessary to optimally design them. You can start with the technology of access to the peripheral nervous system, it is more accessible and the number of access points is minimal. In addition, the consumer in the real economy already has access to the nervous system (the one who makes the capsule for games will become rich, and this is still poorly said).

The second part of the project, and even more important than the first, is the creation of a computational paradigm that allows you to build a seamless information connection between a living human brain and a computer network. In addition, the project is complex in information and requires great support by computational technologies at the design stage (real-time monitoring of the human brain is another task, it only saves that relatively few neurons are activated at the same time).
The current state of computer technology can be described as a “hypertrophied calculator” (a computer was created by mathematicians to automate calculations, and this is a similar paradigm). The use of computers beyond the limits of computational mathematics is ensured by the functional completeness of the principle of constructing computer technology (the possibility of creating a mathematical model). Everything would be fine, but there is a fundamental limitation that does not allow or at least severely limits the use of computing systems for uncontrolled systems (a controlled system is a system for which all variants of its states and behavior are known and there are relatively few of them due to problems with an information explosion) .In addition, it should be noted the fundamental sequence of work of modern computing systems (the presence of several threads of the "threads" of the computing process rather emphasizes the problem and is not at all parallel) and the lack of tools for working with large and complex information tasks. For such tasks, creating a unified and not inconsistent for all use cases program is impossible (for the von Neumann computational paradigm) due to the finite number of programmers and the possibilities for their joint work. At today's level of knowledge in the field of computer technology, it is impossible to write a complex program with guaranteed (calculated) reliability and accuracy. It is impossible to tell (mathematically prove) in advance whether the program will be able to correctly complete the calculations with the correct result.Most programs do not control the accuracy of the result in any way (for example, the developer says: “Let's use the type with the highest bit capacity,” but it doesn’t check the specific result and there is no reaction to the incorrect result - the program will crash). For an ordinary person, writing a parallel program is not a natural process, the logical thinking of a typical person is consistent.the logical thinking of a typical person is consistent.the logical thinking of a typical person is consistent.

You can complain about the current state of affairs endlessly, but one thing is certain, at present, computer technology has implemented all the groundwork of the 70s of the last century and is in stagnation.

The invention (creation) of a new computational paradigm is required not only for a life extension project, but will also be in demand by the entire computer industry.

PS: I personally would give a lot (financially) to play in a fully virtual world. I think many will agree with me.

Like so many on Habré, I chose my hobby: Computational paradigm of the next generation (Topic: Computer of the fifth generation). In the 80s, Japanese comrades failed on this path (the domestic analogue of the MARS computer), I propose to accept the “banner” from weakened samurai hands. I invite everyone who is interested in this direction to take part in the work (well, or follow and comment). For the "seed" of the undertaking, I will publish my own developments in this direction.

Why do we all need digital immortality (in conclusion)


Limitations on intellect.

Now man has practically reached a maximum in development, to achieve the advanced lines of existing science it is necessary to study practically all his life, and at the same time to achieve it only in a very small area of ​​knowledge. Compare with antiquity: while you are a scientist, then immediately in almost all areas of knowledge.

Biological body limitations

From a biological point of view, man saved himself from the negative aspects of life in nature (he built his own habitat), but at the same time he did not save himself from copying mistakes (together with artificial selection is the basis of evolution) and soon people will not be able to live without high-tech medicine . Build a factory where new genetically “corrected” people (citizens with a unique personality) will be produced? I think this approach is a dead end.

Restrictions on the habitat

Resources of our planet are ending (in some regions, the population density is more than 1 person per hundred square meters of land), and a long and comfortable life in space or another planet (in practice) is impossible for a biological person.

If we compare humanity with an airplane taking off from an aerodrome, then we have achieved a separation rate from the strip. We can’t slow down, we need to take off, the alternative is to “sink” into the forest at the end of the runway (the loss of many achievements and the dark ages). That is precisely such a take-off that should be the technology of untying a person’s personality from a biological body and transferring this person to a new carrier.

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